Well, just as it's a fine line between "git-r-done" and "cowboy coder," it's a fine line between "meticulous" and "architecture astronaut." (See early Java vs.

Well, just as it's a fine line between "git-r-done" and "cowboy coder," it's a fine line between "meticulous" and "architecture astronaut." (See early Java vs. later Java, for example.) I think both camps win when they're tempered by the other. I follow the boy scout rule: the code isn't done until it's at least a tiny bit cleaner than we left it. I'll generally spend about one hour out of every four on cleanup (and not budget for it separately). I also focus my cleanup efforts on what I'm directly working on, and what's causing me the most grief today. This allows me to keep my code clean and make the parts of the system that I use the most gradually improve.